Patricia Martinez

Owner of Latino Professional Services

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Patricia Martinez arrived in Napa in 1986, with her husband and young children. “We came to visit Disneyland and stayed here forever,” she jokes. Having studied business administration in her hometown of Mexico City, she decided she wanted to continue the career she had started in Mexico, despite the fact that she didn’t speak English. She began taking classes at Napa Adult School and Napa Valley College, where she earned an A. A. in general education, an A.S. degree in accounting and an A.A. degree in business administration, and her license to do income tax returns, and eventually transferred to Sonoma State.

Initially, she offered her income tax and bookkeeping services from home, but soon enough her clientele grew to the point where it became clear that it was time for her to open her own business.

Martinez has used her aptitude and love of numbers to help many people start and develop their businesses. Latino Professional Services in Napa is one of few businesses that offer income tax services in Spanish, and the gratitude expressed by her clients makes Martinez incredibly proud of what her business is doing for the community.

Many business owners received their support from their families, but for Martinez, it has been “the opposite way.” Her parents had wanted her to work instead of going to school. “I never had the support from my family,” Martinez adds. She considers herself a very persistent person, and rightfully so. “As a Latina with no relatives in this country, and four kids to raise, I have accomplished my dreams,” she says, smiling. To young entrepreneurs, she suggests breaking one’s vision into small goals and working step by step towards making one’s dream a reality, which, she explains, has been her strategy. “If I could do it, you could do it.”